


Blueprints

by eraemilius



Series: The Wanderer [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraemilius/pseuds/eraemilius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short one-part epilogue following the end of "Wandering in the Dark." Alphys reluctantly shares her blueprints for Mettaton's body with Doctor Gaster and is startled to uncover an unrealized connection between the two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprints

“A-alright,” Alphys said, carefully tugging a large roll of blue paper from the tube in her hand, “d-don’t judge them too harshly, okay? I h-haven’t hardly shown these to anyone. Mettaton usually doesn’t like me to.”

Gaster, fidgeting restlessly where he stood on the other side of the table in front of her, was clearly resisting the urge to snatch the blueprints out of Alphys’ hands while she hesitated. Sans grinned up at him, giving Gaster a little nudge to settle him. “Kinda surprised he agreed, to be honest. Dad’s been talking about it all week.”

Gaster flushed a little but didn’t spare Sans a glance as Alphys began laying the rolled paper out on the table between them. “W-well,” Alphys muttered, glancing past them at the robot who was trying to look uninterested from where he stood against the far wall of the lab, “I-I was a little surprised myself…” 

Gaster couldn’t resist any more and eagerly reached down, helping Alphys smooth the curled tube of paper so that it lay flat on the table in front of him. His eyes traveled over the blueprints for Mettaton’s body swiftly, taking in the notes in Alphys’ messy handwriting, the adjustments and alterations. Alphys’ work was unbelievably detail-oriented, even in the abstracts.

“T-this one’s mostly on his hands,” Alphys murmured as she offered another curled tube of paper, smoothing it out over the other half of the table. Gaster’s attention immediately shifted and he began inspecting this one with as much enthusiasm as the first.

Sans was grinning up at his father crookedly. “You’re drooling, Dad.”

Gaster immediately put a hand to his mouth, looking at Sans sharply. “/I-I am not,/” he protested, though he stroked at his chin briefly as though to be certain that was true. He looked back at the blueprints, his face slightly colored still.

Mettaton stayed put where he was, several feet back from the group of them, trying to appear uninterested, though he was too flushed with artificial color to fully hide his investment. It was embarrassing, really, having his body’s designs spread out before the doctor, the doctor who had taken his hand off on their first meeting and who still had a tendency to act like a flustered fangirl in his presence even after examining him closeup. But Mettaton couldn’t deny the slight elation it gave him to have someone who wasn’t Alphys look at the designs and really appreciate the handiwork that had gone into his body. Certainly, all of his fans appreciated his looks, but Doctor Gaster could actually UNDERSTAND the work that had gone into them, in as much sickening, nerdy detail as Doctor Alphys. It was, in some strange way, quite flattering.

But still embarrassing.

Doctor Alphys awkwardly continued to spread rolled blueprints out onto the table atop the others and Gaster helped her to hold down the curled edges of each one in turn. Occasionally, he murmured questions and comments which Sans translated, and Alphys did her best to answer. Gaster moved his hand to underline a few of Alphys’ notes with his trembling fingers, reading along with them to himself, then he turned to her suddenly, staring (she shrank down a bit behind the table), before turning to Sans abruptly. He said a few words and Sans hesitated, then responded, haltingly, using the Doctor’s own dialect. Gaster replied and nodded quickly.

Sans looked toward Alphys again, smiling casually, as though this rather awkward little moment had not just happened. “Sorry to break up the party, but I got a few things to take care of back home. Dad’ll stay a while, if you don’t mind. If you have any trouble understanding him, he can write stuff down for you. Mettaton can probably translate it.”

Mettaton looked up from across the room, frowning at Sans. Alphys blinked. “Oh. A-alright Sans. W-well thank you for coming over!”

Sans grinned at her. “Give yourself a little credit, Doctor. All of this--” He motioned to the blueprints which Gaster was still hovering over. “--It’s all really impressive. Thanks for showing us.” Sans glanced up at Gaster once more and gave him a quirk of a smile. They exchanged a few words in Gaster’s dialect before Sans waved to Alphys and headed for the door, bobbing his head at Mettaton on his way out. “See ya, Mettaton.”

“Goodbye, Sans,” Mettaton murmured, still frowning curiously.

Alphys slowly turned back to Doctor Gaster, smiling up at him anxiously, her face quite red after these unexpected compliments. “W-well.” She went to reach for the next blueprint in the tube and found it was the last one. “O-oh. Uh. W-wow. I’m sorry. I’m not sure I can s-show you this one.”

Across the room, Mettaton blinked. He turned to look after Sans, then back at the Doctor quickly. Had Gaster...sent Sans away? He paused, then slowly stepped forward. “It’s...alright, Alphys. You can show him.”

Alphys blinked, looking up at Mettaton in astonishment as he approached. “A-are you sure? It’s the p-plans for your--”

“I know,” Mettaton said, looking at Gaster as he stepped up beside him. Gaster returned the look with a small, sheepish smile. “He already knows.”

Alphys stared, looking from Mettaton to Gaster and back several times. “H-he does?? You do?? How--??”

“When he examined me,” Mettaton said, brushing a piece of hair out of his eye. “He figured it out without any help from me, I promise you. But he already knows. You might as well show him, darling. I think he’ll be abundantly impressed with your work...”

Alphys hesitated still, then slowly withdrew the last tube of blue paper, spreading it out on the table in front of them. Gaster helped her again to smooth the edges and this time Mettaton helped as well.

They were the plans for Mettaton’s Soul Container, along with detailed notes on varying experimental methods to transfer the existing soul of an incorporeal monster into a corporeal body. Gaster scanned the page, lingering here and there on varying details, tilting his head where things were written askew or added in with carrots. Mettaton’s fans were humming warmly, his face flushing again with color. Alphys was trembling violently, biting at her lip and clearly trying to resist the urge to run and hide.

“...I-I didn’t come up with all of it myself!” she blurted suddenly. “I-I found...someone else’s blueprints. I-in the trash. And I used them as a foundation.”

“Alphys, don’t sell yourself short, darling,” Mettaton scolded softly. Nonetheless, Alphys was already scurrying across the room, where she retrieved another, smaller tube from a drawer, and returned, popping it open. She drew out a much more wrinkled and damaged blueprint. In order to keep it from soiling the others, Mettaton quickly scooped the rest off the table, rolling them back up. Alphys began to lay out the old blueprint and Gaster helped, until he saw the writing on the paper and immediately froze.

There were diagrams similar to Alphys’, though much more crude. And detailed notes, some of them legible and some...written in symbols.

“The symbols really threw me for a loop at first,” Alphys admitted, smiling nervously. “But I pieced together the idea for the transfer of the Soul from the diagrams...Then later, I realized the symbols were just Wingdings, written out. Weird, isn’t it? Who writes in Wingdings?” She laughed a little, til she noticed the way Gaster was staring down at the blueprints, and Mettaton was staring at Gaster. She paused, blinking up at the scientist across from her. “...w-wait, don’t YOU write in Wingdings??”

Gaster looked at her with his eyes, but otherwise he didn’t move, stiff, two hands on the table in front of him. Mettaton tilted his head slowly, inspecting the other monster’s face. Gaster fumbled for words for a moment before realizing it wouldn’t matter even if he did find them; neither of them could understand him.

“Are these YOUR blueprints?” Mettaton asked, leaning on the table with one hand.

Gaster hesitated, then nodded stiffly. 

“W...why were they in the trash??” Alphys stammered.

Gaster signed with both hands for a moment before making a ‘writing’ gesture. Alphys retrieved a pen and a pad of paper from a nearby drawer and Gaster quickly scribbled out a note. To his surprise, both Alphys and Mettaton turned to him almost immediately and Alphys blurted out, “You couldn’t make it work???”

Gaster flushed, embarrassed, not expecting that Alphys would be able to translate his Wingdings so quickly; though, if she’d been using his blueprints, he supposed it would make sense. He stumbled over his words again for a moment before quickly scribbling another note.

_I ATTEMPTED SEVERAL SOUL TRANSFERS IN MY YOUTH. BUT I COULD NEVER GET A SOUL TO FUSE WITH AN INORGANIC BODY. AT THE TIME, I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT IT WAS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE. I ADMIT, IT’S THE PRIMARY REASON WHY I AM SO FASCINATED WITH METTATON._

Mettaton blushed a little and glanced aside. Alphys turned to Gaster again and gaped at him. “I-I...I managed to do something you couldn’t? Using YOUR blueprints?”

Gaster smiled sheepishly and shrugged. When the idea of creating a companion for himself had first occurred to him in his youth, he had experimented with fitting a portion of his Soul into an artificial body. It hadn’t worked, and after a number of failed experiments, Gaster had almost given up hope. Then he considered the possibility of growing an _organic_ body from pieces of his own. Albeit, the circumstances of the transfer were different and there were matters beyond Alphys’ and Gaster’s control that may have determined the eventual success or failure of the experiments. Nonetheless, Alphys still had cause to be particularly proud of her work. She had succeeded where he had failed, many times.

“Whose Soul were you transferring?” Mettaton asked, leaning over to try and get a better look at Gaster’s face.

Gaster glanced at him, fumbling a little. He scribbled another note out.

_THAT’S RATHER PRIVATE. I’M AFRAID I CAN’T SAY MORE._

Mettaton frowned, but reluctantly let it go. He couldn’t very well invade the privacy of someone who was good enough to respect his own desire for secrecy.

“I just can’t believe these were your blueprints,” Alphys murmured, gazing down at them. “I-I couldn’t have done it without them. They inspired me.” She smiled weakly up at Gaster and he smiled back with fondness. Mettaton watched the both of them curiously as Gaster wrote out another note and turned it to Alphys.

_HONESTLY, YOUR WORK IS QUITE FASCINATING, DOCTOR ALPHYS. WHAT YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED WITH METTATON--I GENUINELY DIDN’T BELIEVE IT WAS POSSIBLE._

“T-thank you,” Alphys murmured, flushed again and smiling.

“I suppose I have you to thank then, in part,” Mettaton said, with slight reluctance. Gaster looked at him, somewhat startled. “Doctor Alphys did me a great service when she made me this body and found a way for me to inhabit it…If your blueprints inspired her, then you’re partly responsible.”

Gaster waved a hand dismissively, looking rather flustered at the suggestion. “/I could only dream of such a thing,/” he muttered distractedly. Mettaton tilted his head, awaiting a translation but Gaster shook his head and waved it off, putting the paper and pen down on the table. He reached a hand across the table and Alphys gingerly took it, letting him give it a gentle shake. Then Gaster turned toward Mettaton, flushed somewhat. Mettaton frowned at him but offered his hand just the same; Gaster clasped it tightly a moment before releasing him. 

Mettaton’s hand, thankfully, remained attached.


End file.
